In yesterday's article, I gave an overview of Mac OS X Server, and described some of the features. Read on for some detail of the specific services that Server offers, and the final verdict.

A Parser's Baggage queries: "For the last couple of years I've been working with XML based protocols and one thing that keeps coming up is the amount of CPU power needed to handle 10, 20, 30 or 40 concurrent requests. I've ran benchmarks on both Java and C#, and my results show that on a 2ghz CPU, the upper boundary for concurrent clients is around 20, regardless of the platform. How have other developers dealt with these issues and what kinds of argument do you use to make the performance concerns know to the execs. I'm in favor of using XML for it's flexibility, but for performance sensitive applications, the weight is simply too big. This is especially true when some executive expects and demands that it handle 1000 requests/second on a 1 or 2 cpu server. Things like stream/pull parsers help for SOAP, but when you're reading and using the entire message, pull parsing doesn't buy you any advantages."

George Wright writes "Toshiba have announced a monster of a laptop with their Satellite P25. Seems they've decided to copy Apple's idea of fitting a 17" LCD on a laptop, but have ended making a true aircraft carrier in doing so. Notable "features" are the 2.8GHz P4, the 802.11a/b and the 10lb weight (!!!). Still a relatively low resolution though :("

David Graham writes: "Recently, I incorporated a wireless camera into an HO scale 74' passenger car to make a TrainCam, and this is the story of its construction. Lacking space to build a set in my rented single room, I built a simple 18" radius track on the carpet, going through the frame of my bed. On it, I added a short Amtrak train and watched it go in decidedly boring little circles. Not long after I started running the train, it derailed and clearly demonstrated why carpets are not the best place for model trains to be. Meanwhile, upstairs in his room, one of my house-mates had just bought a small wireless camera, battery pack, and receiver for a little over C$100 and was demonstrating its ability to broadcast conversations and images from as far as 200 feet away back to his computer screen, with the help of a TV capture card. It wasn't long before I started coveting the little camera and I soon bought myself one. It was not for the purpose of listening to my friends' conversations so much as it was to record the train as it chugged around the uneven little track on my floor." For the whole story on the project, read on below.

Johnzo writes: "It seems ludicrous to imagine that a spaceship could ascend into orbit and beyond by riding the impulses produced by a series of external atomic explosions. Such an idea would perhaps be more properly confined to science fiction -- like the Niven & Pournelle classic Footfall. But Footfall drew its inspiration from a real-life project, a project that, according to George Dyson's Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship, continues to offer exciting possibilities for space exploration." This sounds like a fascinating book; read on below for johnzo's full review.

Here are 10+ plus answers to Slashdot questions from motion picture digital effects expert Thad Beier. He chose the additional questions himself. (Yes, he's on Slashdot almost every day; we asked him to do the interview after reading many intelligent comments he's posted.) Anyway, there's some fine insight into the intersection of moviemaking, graphic arts, and computer science here, brought to you by an award-winning member of the film industry who just happens to be a fellow Slashdot reader.

Your intrepid reporter took a jaunt down to the H2K2 conference this past weekend, held in the lovely Hotel Pennsylvania. The conference had much more floor space than they had two years ago, and it seemed like more attendance as well. Wireless networks were available, though overcrowded, and if you didn't encrypt your communications, well, you've probably already paid the price. My notes on the conference and the sessions I attended are below, followed by a couple of reader submissions.

Peter Wayner writes: "Metaphors drawn from biology have always fascinated computer scientists. No one speaks of subroutines that cp themselves through undocumented remote procedure calls because talk of 'computer viruses' carries all of the portent and weight of polio, anthrax, German Measles and tuberculosis. Invoking these mysterious and deadly images is more colorful than tech speak, even if most of the so-called viruses are closer to the common cold than the black plague. Why use a three-letter acronym when a biological metaphor is available?" Wayner wrote the following review of Peter J. Bentley's book Digital Biology, which may just answer that question.

Reader Bob Johnson wrote this detailed review of Hacking Exposed followup Hacking Linux Exposed -- especially in light of the various color-coded Windows viruses still on the loose, this might be a good present for your your local Windows administrator as well, but both Bob and the authors are clear: GNU/Linux systems may be more resistant, but are not immune to cracking.

Last week you asked Sam Lantinga , developer of the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) about SDL and other issues related to gaming. He's responded with answers about the SL port to Sony Playstation, game audio, DirectX, his new job at Blizzard, and more. He even drops some hints about some interesting gaming developments to watch out for.

Bob Young prefaces his answers to your questions by saying, "You may notice I've ducked some of the answers below - there is a reason for this. My role at Red Hat these days is as Chairman of the board. Matthew Szulik is Red Hat's CEO and will be a better person to answer some of the specific issues that these questions raise....

This is the fifth in our Hellmouth Revisited series; reprinted below is both Jon Katz's column "More Stories From The Hellmouth" and some of the flood of email and comments which Jon's original Hellmouth columns inspired. To read and consider.

Here are some more of the Slashdot comments (and sobering e-mails) that Jon Katz inspired when he started writing about the frustrations of high-school life in Voices From The Hellmouth and subsequent columns.

Once a year, would-be cyborgs and their creators congregate for a few days of catching up with each other and the state of the art at the International Symposium on Wearable Computers's conference, sponsored by the IEEE and corporate sponsors like Microsoft and Compaq. Ever-lighter and more colorful head-mounted displays, innovative input devices and boundary-stretching ideas on human/machine interaction conspire to attract strange looks from startled pedestrians or frank admiration from fellow participants. When ISWC2000 began Monday in Atlanta. it marked the fourth such gathering -- the event has been held in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Cambridge, Mass. ISWC is about equal parts trade show, academic conference, and family reunion for a visibly different kind of family. Since ALS had ended just one day before, I stayed in the Peachtree state an extra few days to check it out. Read on to see what I found.

Big Business loves Free software. Actually, Big Business loves free software, at least theoretically. The practical, legal and philisophical aspects aren't necessarily as easy to get a handle on as a price that varies from Nothing to Not Much. Rene Hollan contributed the piece below about one early move that a division of Teradyne made in an effort to orient themselves correctly with Free software tools they wanted to use. They went straight to the horse's mouth -- they decided to ask how best to apply the GPL of the man who wrote it, Richard M. Stallman, and got at least as much as they bargained for. And if you want RMS to come visit your place of business to tell them How It's Done, remember that his shedule is busy, and as Rene points out below in his Mini RMS-Visit FAQ, he needs his e-mail.

We've linked to plenty of "secondhand" media pieces about the recent DoS attacks on major commercial Web sites. Fine. Now here's real, hard-core hard-tech info on the subject - in answer to your excellent questions - from somebody who actually knows what's going on, namely Dave Dittrich from the University of Washington. He's been interviewed up the yin-yang this last week by mainstream reporters who probably wouldn't understand half the answers he gives here. But this is Slashdot, so he didn't have to hold back or dumb anything down. Click below and enjoy!

The United States loves to see itself as the cradle of liberty, but when it comes to sex, America mostly demonstrates its prudishness and hypocrisy. Sex is our national taboo.The Net, our new national taboo-buster, along with a spate of new laws and court rulings, have all taken this national phobia to meltdown. Are free speech and the online liberation of sexuality incompatible?

Thanks to a rather interesting string of e-mails (Thanks Evan!), today's feature writer is none other than David Brin. Brin's bio is after his piece, but suffice it to say he's one of the most interesting writers, IMHO, out there today. This piece, one of his essay's, deals with why George Marshall should be Man of the Century. (Another one of Brin's essays that many of you will remember is his work dealing with Star Wars, Episode One.)

Monday we asked you to post questions for Alan Cox. We got so many good ones that only those moderated up to five were sent to him! Alan's answers are as great as you'd expect from one of the world's greatest kernel hackers. Read the full Q&A session below.

Matthew Priestley has written an excellent essay on News in the Slashdot Decade. It talks about how The Internet is changing the way that news moves about, and discusses problems and advantages related to it. Interesting its a really excellent piece.